Duty
by Qoheleth
Summary: AU. How the aftermath of #33 might have played out, if Rachel had stayed dead. (The first time, I mean.)


As Cassie came out of the barn, Jake and Marco and I jumped to our feet, and I saw Ax, out of the corner of my eye, lean forward on the branch where he was perched in harrier morph. We were all hoping for good news – can you blame us? – but, when I saw the look on Cassie's face, my heart sank, because I knew we weren't going to get it.

I'm sure Jake knew it, too; after all, it was Cassie, and if anybody should know how to read Cassie, it's Jake. But Jake has a strength about him that, even whole, I don't understand; you'd never have known that he had any feelings on the subject at all as he said, "So, how is he?"

Cassie bit her lip, and looked down at the ground. "Well, physically, he's fine," she said. "Whatever that thing was that the Sub-Visser used on him, it doesn't look like it was built to do his body any harm. But his mind…" She sighed.

"Gone?" I said, hoping that my voice didn't sound to the others like the gasping squeak I heard.

Cassie looked up at me, and her eyes had that look of wistful sadness that they so often did when they met mine. "No, not gone," she said. "He's still in there, I'm sure of that. But his human side has retreated behind a wall of hawk instincts, and he just refuses to come out. I've been in there for – what, an hour now?"

«Seventy-three minutes,» said Ax.

Cassie nodded. "And… nothing," she said. "Every so often I'd think I'd seen a flash of humanity in his eyes, but then the next moment there'd be nothing there except hawk, and no sign that the other had ever been there. For all I know, it was just my imagination running away with me." She licked her lips, and added, "In an awful way, I almost hope it was."

"Why?" said Marco.

"Because I saw it a lot more often at the beginning of our session than at the end," said Cassie. "If that wasn't just imagination – if he's actually having fewer real human moments as time goes on…"

Her voice trailed off, but I didn't have any trouble filling in the details. It was one of the reasons I'd been so afraid of morphing, a few weeks before: the ease with which you could lose yourself in an animal's mind, just burying your own self deeper and deeper until you couldn't come out even if you wanted to. But to think of Tobias – brave, noble, dear Tobias – getting lost that way in the morph he'd lived so grandly for so long… it was wrong, it was unfair, it turned everything he'd been through into just a cheap, filthy joke.

And it was because of me. That was the truly awful part. If Rachel had still been alive, that would have given him something to fight for – and even if she'd been straightforwardly dead, loyalty to her memory could have seen him through. But instead, here I was, taking her role in the group, having her morphs and her memories, passing as her in everyday life – heck, at least once every meeting, Jake or Cassie would slip and call me by her name – and breaking his heart all the while, because I couldn't open my mouth without something coming out that she would never have even thought. I'd tried, I really had; I knew that my original had given the Animorphs something indispensable, and that I couldn't replace that by being a less knowledgeable version of Cassie, so I'd tried to be the valiant, hot-blooded battle-craver they needed. But I just couldn't make it come out right; when _I_ said, "Let's do it," it sounded like that part in the Bible where Peter or whoever says, well, if He's going to get Himself killed, then we'd better go and join Him. "Not so much _Xena: Warrior Princess_ as _The Reluctant Dragon_ ": that was how Marco had summed me up the day before, during our infiltration of the Sharing festival.

And so Tobias had gone on, having his heart broken afresh every day, yet never letting the tears inside reach those fiercely beautiful eyes. And then the news had come that the Anti-Morphing Ray was ready; of course, he'd had to volunteer to be the test subject – not just to trick the Yeerks, but because serving his planet was all he had left. And then when things went wrong, and that filthy Sub-Visser got hold of him and… oh, when I thought of how she'd treated him, I could have torn her plastic face off all over again… and him already so vulnerable, already half-broken by life… by me…

I took a deep breath, realizing what I had to do now. If I'd only done it sooner, before… well, I hadn't, and that was that. But if I couldn't undo the harm I'd caused, at least I could keep from causing any more.

I stood up and cleared my throat, and waited for the others to turn to me. "Guys, I should probably get going," I said. "Jordan's got this school project she put off till the last minute, and I should, you know, go help her with it."

I thought I saw Jake exchange a glance with Marco out of the corner of his eye; then he nodded. "Sure," he said. "See you around, Michelle."

 _Not really, Jake,_ I thought. But I nodded. "Sure."

* * *

As I headed out into the woods, I went through all the morphs Rachel had left me. The others were expecting me to go eagle, of course, but I had a feeling I wouldn't make a good eagle – or grizzly bear or elephant, either. (Funny how bears and elephants looked so sweet and cuddly in cartoons and picture books and things, but in real life… well, no need to think about that.) And insect morphs were definitely out.

What was it Aftran had decided to be? Humpback whale, right. Well, I didn't have one of those – and I was nowhere near the ocean, anyway. Too bad, really; if I had been, maybe I could have gone dolphin, or seal…

 _Or starfish,_ a nasty voice inside my head whispered.

 _Shut up,_ I told it.

A branch above my head rustled, and I looked up and saw a squirrel darting through the leaves. Despite myself, I smiled; that would have been all right, if I'd had one. Living in the treetops, hunting for nuts, slipping inside tree-trunks when there was danger… yes, I could have lived a cheerful, contented life as a squirrel. But Cassie was the one with the squirrel morph; the closest I had was a rat – and _that_ wasn't happening.

Bat? Nope. Mole? Nope. Shrew? Double-nope. Cat?

Cat might do. I could sneak out of the woods, and head north out of town – get far enough away so that Fluffer would never be recognized – and then find another sweet, lonely girl like Melissa and mew piteously on her doorstep until she took me in. Of course, her parents might not want her adopting strays, but surely I could find some way to win them over; if worse came to worse, and I could make sure they weren't Controllers, I could talk to them in thought-speak and say I was a fairy cat who would bring them good luck or something. (Which I could; a cat with a human mind could probably arrange for all kinds of good things to happen for her owners, without anybody ever suspecting how she was doing it. Sort of a Puss-in-Boots kind of thing, only secret.) And then she and I would belong to each other forever; I would comfort her when she was sad or afraid, and she would take care of me and love me and… yeah, cat was definitely the way to go.

I closed my eyes, and focused on Fluffer's DNA inside me; a tingling sensation swept over my skin, and I almost let out a sigh of relief as I felt the fur start to grow. Sure, it would be sad to leave my home and my parents and my sisters – but, then again, was it really leaving them if they didn't even know they had me? They thought they still had Rachel; by going away and letting them conclude that Rachel had died, I'd actually be bringing them closer to the truth – even if her death hadn't happened in quite the way they'd think. So it would be better for them, and better for me, too – better for the Animorphs, better for that girl I hadn't met yet, better for…

"So we've got furry bald eagles around here now, huh?" said a voice behind me. "Toxic waste, probably. Someone should tell the EPA."

I wrenched my eyes open and whirled around. "Marco!" I gasped. "How… why… what are you doing out here?"

Marco shrugged casually. "Oh, I just thought I'd come out and check on you," he said. "You know, be a gentleman and make sure that you got safely home."

So he'd known. Dagnabbit, why couldn't I keep my stupid face from telling everyone just what I was thinking? It never seemed to happen with my family – but, then again, they thought they were seeing Rachel, so why _should_ they guess what _I_ was thinking?

I took a deep breath, and tried to make my tone soft yet firm, like Jake's. "I'm not going home, Marco."

"Oh, yes, you are," Marco said.

"No, I'm _not_!" So much for soft-yet-firm. "You think you can tell me what to do, Mr. Strategic-Thinking-Jokester-Gorilla-Boy? You think because you've been an Animorph from the beginning, and I'm just a freak accident that some boy on the beach made with a shovel, therefore you always know better than me? Well, you're wrong. I may not be the person you think I should be, but I'm just as much of an Animorph as she was, and when I…" I swallowed. "…when I'm the only one who can fix what's broken, I have as much right as anyone else to… to…"

Now this just plain wasn't fair. I'd been about to _do_ it; why couldn't I talk about it? Why did trying to actually form the words make my voice choke up in my throat, and hot, stinging tears well out of my eyes like some kind of emotional geyser? (I could hear Cheryl's nasty, mocking voice in my ears: "See the Wimp Rachel Mineral Spring! One of the wonders of North America, flowing every hour on the hour!")

Through the teary haze, I could see Marco looking at me expressionlessly. "Not bad," he said. "Eloquent, heartfelt, and shows a real knack for spur-of-the-moment nickname invention. Shame you couldn't sink the ending, though." He paused, and added, "You know, I'm never going to get used to seeing Rachel cry."

"I'm not Rachel!" I snapped.

"Didn't say you were," Marco replied. "But, still, when you cry, I see Rachel crying, and that just warps my mind." He came over, and reached up and put his arm around my shoulder. "Come on, let's sit down. I can't stand looking up at someone who's only a month old."

He led me over to a fallen tree-trunk, brushed it off, and sat me down on it. As he did, I looked down at my arm and realized that my skin was still covered in cat's fur; hastily, I focused back on my own body and reversed the morph. However this conversation went, I didn't want to have it looking like something out of a pervert skin-flick – and, anyway, I preferred to feel Marco's arm against my own shoulder, not Fluffer's.

"So," said Marco, as he seated himself next to me, "first off, don't you think it would have been nice if you'd told us about your little plan to make things right?"

"Of course," I said. "And I _would_ have told you, if you'd only waited for two hours."

"Ah," said Marco. "Until we couldn't talk you out of it, you mean."

"Well, why not?" I said, feeling my anger rise again. "I knew what you'd try to say. 'Oh, no, Michelle, we're really glad to have you, we don't blame you at all for what's happened to Tobias, there's never been a single moment when we've wished you'd never existed…'"

"But you're sure we wouldn't have meant it?" said Marco.

"How could you? And even if you did, you'd be wrong. You _should_ want to be rid of me; I _am_ a pathetic excuse for an Animorph, let alone for…"

"Oh, now hang on a minute," said Marco. "Aren't you forgetting what pathetic excuses for Animorphs the rest of us are? Cassie, who goes into meltdown when she has to kill a termite; Ax, who nearly blows his cover every time he gets near a Cinnabon; Jake, who's just a dumb jock trying to play General Eisenhower…"

"Jake is not a…"

"And as for me…" Marco spread his hands. "Well, you've got all of Rachel's memories. Look through them for ten seconds, and then try and tell me that I have any right to be Earth's One Hope against the Brain-Stealers of Mars. But…"

"Marco, you're missing the point," I said. "It's not about the individual problems you all may have; it's about the team you make together – the way you balance each other out, all giving what the others lack. That team is what's going to save Earth, if anything does – and I don't belong to it."

"Neither did Ax, at the beginning," Marco pointed out. "But he slid in okay."

"That's different." I was starting to feel a little annoyed with Marco; he was usually sharper than this. "If I were just some random person you'd added to the team, sure, I could fit in as well as Ax – or as badly as David, maybe. That would depend on me. But that's not what happened. I'm not just taking a new spot on the team; I'm replacing Rachel. And I _can't_ replace Rachel," I said, breathing heavily now so I didn't start sobbing, "and, the longer I try, the more I ruin things – like Tobias. So I've got to go away, before I ruin anything more."

I would have given just about anything, at that moment, to be able to read Marco's face like he seemed to be able to read mine. He almost scared me, just sitting there so silent and looking so hard at me – like the fate of planets, or something even more important, depended on what he made me think in the next few minutes. I was just starting to squirm a little bit in my seat on the log when he said, "Who says you're replacing Rachel?"

I blinked. "Um… hello? She's not here, and I am. She's not here _because_ I am." I hesitated. "Or maybe I am because she isn't. Which way would you say…"

"Doesn't mean you're replacing her, though," said Marco. "Why can't it be a case of, oh, shoot, Rachel went and got herself killed, so I guess she can't be an Animorph anymore – and then a little later, hey, look, here's this cool new girl with a pre-loaded set of morphs, why don't we make her an Animorph?"

"Cool new girl," I muttered. "Yeah, that's how you think of me, sure."

"Why this skepticism?" said Marco, looking wounded. "Have you forgotten that, just a couple weeks ago, Jake and I spent a whole afternoon as parasitic plankton sniffing at starfish, just to find the one that you needed to re-acquire to become psychically intact? Do you think we would have done that for anyone we _didn't_ think was cool?"

"You did that because you had to," I said. "It wasn't safe for you to have me stay in the _asgrinok_ phase longer than you could help. You'd have done the same for Cheryl, if she hadn't gone and gotten herself hit by that taxicab."

"Well… yeah, probably," Marco admitted. "Just as well we didn't, though. I don't care how much more mature she would have been when she'd regenerated; anyone who tries to run across a freeway in coyote morph at rush hour isn't someone we need in the Animorphs."

"That's the thing, though," I said – feeling my voice, as I spoke, get unsteady yet again. "That kind of dauntless spirit _is_ what you need. It's the special thing that Rachel had more than any of the rest of you – the thing that it really damaged you to lose. And how can I replace that? How can I give you anything even a little bit like it? Isn't it better if I go away, and give you a chance to find someone better – someone who's not so much of a Reluctant Dragon?"

I swear I wasn't expecting the reaction that got from him. I didn't even know that Marco _could_ look that shocked, much less that saying those words would make it happen. "Wait – wait just a second," he said. "You're telling me _that's_ what this is all about? Because I made some stupid joke yesterday, that means that Tobias's shut-down is your fault, so good-bye, cruel world, you're off to join the circus?"

"No!" I said. "No, Marco, it's not like that at all! It's not because you said it; it's because it's _true_! That's what…"

Marco reached out, and laid both of his hands on top of mine. "Michelle, listen," he said, all the glibness suddenly gone from his voice. "I don't know how Tobias felt about having you in the Animorphs. And I don't know how Cassie, or Ax, or Jake feel about it, either. But I know how _I_ feel. And if I had to pick between keeping you and having Rachel back – well, not to speak ill of the dead, but, for my money, I'd hate to mess up the good thing we've got going now."

I sniffed. "Well, sure you would. Rachel was always your great nemesis; of course you'd rather…"

Marco shook his head. "It's not just that," he said. "Just because Rachel and I didn't get along much, that doesn't mean I don't know she was an awesome person. But that 'dauntless spirit' you were talking about… well, first off, I don't think Rachel would ever have used a word like 'dauntless'. I think you're the only person I've ever met who could say 'dauntless' in regular conversation and not feel weird about it. Ax doesn't count," he added, as I opened my mouth to interrupt. "He wouldn't really be saying 'dauntless'; he'd be saying some normal word in his own language, and we'd just hear it as 'dauntless' because that's what his language is like. But when an actual American human goes around talking like something out of _Ivanhoe_ , that means she's someone special."

I smiled. "Well, thanks, Marco," I said. "I think you're special, too."

"Mm," said Marco. "But the other thing is, sure you don't have Rachel's automatic insane bravery. For you, it's pretty obvious that being brave is something you have to really work at, and probably that's not going to change anytime soon. But don't you get that _that's_ something you have to give us? Don't you think it helps us – or at least some of us, sometimes – to see someone who's obviously even more scared than we are grit her teeth and convince herself that backing down isn't an option?"

I frowned, and thought about that for a moment. "Well… I suppose it might, but… I don't know, isn't that something any of you could do? I thought being afraid when you went into battle was the normal, human way to feel…"

"Something wrong with being normal?" said Marco.

"No, but… I'm _not_ normal, I'm…"

"Then how come you're leaving because you're so normal?"

"Well…" I was starting to feel confused. "Okay, fine, so I'm normal about being afraid of battle…"

"Right, so I'll ask again," said Marco. "What's wrong with being normal?"

"Well, Rachel wasn't normal that way, was she?"

"No, but you're not Rachel, so you're allowed to be normal."

"But why have me on the team just to be normal?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know!" I wailed. "I know you're smarter than I am, Marco, and I know you'll have an answer for anything I say. But I just can't do this anymore, all right? I can't keep risking my life when all I've ever done with it is pretend to be someone I'm not. I'm me. Me, Michelle. And I don't even know who Michelle is; for my whole life so far, all she's ever been is a fake Rachel and a weakling Animorph. And I deserve better than that, dagnabbit!" I pounded my fist on the log for emphasis (and then wished I hadn't; the wood was rougher than I'd realized, and I got a nasty little splinter in the side of my hand).

Marco gave me a long, quiet look, and then nodded. "Yeah," he said, so softly that I could barely hear it. "Yeah, you do."

For some stupid reason, the way he said that made me want to blush. While I was still trying to fight it down, he added, "And if you really think that trapping yourself as Melissa Chapman's cat is the best way to get something better, then sure, go ahead and do it. Like you say, you're as much an Animorph as the rest of us; if Cassie had the right to leave the group and start a new life as a caterpillar, we can't exactly say you don't. But, before you do, there's just one more thing I kind of wish you'd think about."

I sighed. "What?"

Marco folded his hands, leaned backward a little, and took a deep breath. "Well, I'll admit I didn't really follow everything Lourdes told us about the Mortrids and their fission babies. I get that it's important to try and understand diverse cultures and all that, but the affinity laws of a race of prehistoric pterodactyl-mobiles didn't seem like something that would ever come up in sensitivity training, so I kind of let my eyes glaze over at that point. But the impression I ended up with was that, the way they saw it, when you cut one of them in half and two new ones grew from him, it was the same as when a human embryo splits into identical twins, right? Just a little later in the day."

I nodded. It wasn't something I liked to think about – since it meant that Cheryl had actually been to me what Castor was to Pollux, and, instead of being closer than close the way twins are supposed to be, we'd hated each other with a passion for the whole of her short life – but I knew it was true, all the same.

"So what's Rachel to you, then?" said Marco. "What relationship, I mean. What relationship do identical twins have to the embryo that split in half to produce them? Not children – they're the children of the original parents, the one who conceived the embryo. So they'd have to be siblings, right? Three people, all with the same mother and father?"

"I guess so," I said. "Though not everyone thinks embryos count as people…"

Marco waved his hand, as though that wasn't even worth considering. "Work with me, Michelle," he said. "We're talking about Rachel here."

"Okay, fine," I said. "Rachel was my sister, sure. I can live with that." But I had an uncomfortable feeling, like I knew I wasn't going to enjoy where this was headed.

"Exactly," said Marco. "Rachel's your sister." Then his voice changed; it was as though one of his maternal ancestors, some grave Spanish soldier or nobleman, had suddenly started speaking out of his mouth. "She was your sister," he said. "And she's dead."

"Well… yeah," I said, feeling even less comfortable than before. "Of course she is."

"And, by dying, she brought you to life," said Marco, "and gave you all the morphs she'd acquired in the course of the war – including the cat you were morphing when I dropped in on you. Never mind that she didn't mean to: the point is, she did. Now, I'm not going to play the 'I know what she'd want you to do' card; my dad sometimes does that with Mom, and it drives me crazy. But what I do know – and so do you – is that Rachel thought of her morphs, first and foremost, as weapons to defend the Earth against the most dangerous menace it had ever seen. And the thing is, if I had a sister that I owed my life to – and if she'd given me something she thought of that way – and if I went and used it, not to fight in the war she'd fought in, but actually to run away and hide from it… well, I don't think it would matter how justified I was, I'd still wake up every morning hating myself for being alive."

And that was it. I should have known he was leading up to that appeal – the one that, try as I might, I'd never in my life been able to ignore. "So, in other words," I said dully, "staying an Animorph is my duty."

"Pretty much, yeah."

I groaned, and kicked at a nearby pinecone. " _Stupid_ word."

* * *

We sat there in silence for a little while, me slowly forcing the rest of myself to agree with my conscience, and Marco waiting patiently for me to be done. Then, suddenly, I turned to him and said, "So what am I supposed to do, then?"

"About being Michelle, you mean?" said Marco.

"Yes. That's not a selfish thing to care about, is it? I mean, I can't have duties unless I have rights, too – and what right could be more basic than the right to know who I am?"

"Or who you're supposed to be," Marco added. "Yeah, I'll give you that one."

"But how can I find that out on my own?" I said (do I have to say that my voice was trembling again?). "That's not how it's meant to work. Even the Mortrids had brood-fellowships to help the new fission babies find their feet – or their wheels, I guess. And with humans, there are supposed to be mothers and fathers to love you and nurture you and support you, and give you everything you need not to be lost in the world. But for me… well, like you said, if I'm an identical twin, then my mother and father are the same as Rachel's, and they don't even know I exist!" ( _And, even if they did,_ I thought, _how could they be strong enough to help me, if they're not even strong enough to keep themselves together?_ But I didn't say that part out loud; Mom and Dad had drummed it into Rachel's head that their divorce didn't at all reflect on their love for their children, and, even if I wasn't sure I agreed, that drumming had transferred well enough to my own head to keep me self-conscious about saying so.)

Marco nodded, and gazed thoughtfully at me. "Yeah, it's true," he said. "You're basically a brand-new kind of war orphan, aren't you?"

I bit my lip; why did he have to have such a way with words? "Well… yeah," I said hoarsely. "Yeah, I guess… I guess I am."

"Hmm," said Marco. "Well, then, in that case…"

Abruptly, he jumped up from the log and took my hand. "Come on," he said.

I blinked. "Huh? What for?"

"You'll see. Just come on."

Mystified, I got up and followed after him as he strode through the woods back to the barn. Jake and Cassie were still standing in front of the big door; as Marco and I came up to them, I saw Jake's eyes flicker to me, and a quiet little smile crossed his face.

"Ax still around?" said Marco to the two of them.

"He's in there," said Cassie, nodding her head toward the barn. "He said he was just going in to demorph and remorph, so he didn't get trapped on the flight back to his scoop. But he's been in there an awfully long time now," she added, with a thoughtful glance at the barn door. "I wonder…"

But Marco didn't wait for her to finish. With a heave, he rolled the door back just enough to slip himself through; gesturing at the rest of us to follow, he vanished into the shadows inside. Cassie gave me a puzzled look; I just shrugged helplessly, and slid myself in after him.

It took my eyes a moment to get accustomed to the dimness inside the barn; once they did, I looked around to see where Marco had gone, and saw him walking past a row of cages to where Ax was standing, still in his Andalite body, in front of – I swallowed – the cage where Cassie had put Tobias. (She'd said she had to – her dad had been working in the barn that morning, and he would have thought it odd for a basically healthy red-tail to have been left loose to molest the other animals – but that didn't make the sight any less pathetic.)

"Hey, Ax," he said. "Got a question for you."

Ax, who had all four of his eyes on Tobias, didn't seem to hear at first; then, slowly, he raised his head and turned toward Marco, his stalk eyes still focused on the cage. «Yes, Marco?» he said.

"It's about these Andalite rituals of yours," said Marco. "You've got like a million of them, right? One for every occasion?"

«We believe in the importance of ceremony, yes,» said Ax.

"Well, how does the ritual for provisional adoption go?"

My hand flew to my mouth, and I let out a little stifled gasp. Ax, though, just looked puzzled. «Adoption?» he repeated, as though looking for a hidden meaning in the word.

"Sure," said Marco. "You must have adoption on the Andalite homeworld, right? I know you're highly advanced aliens and all, but, still, people must die unexpectedly now and then, in battles or spaceship crashes or whatever, and leave orphaned children behind that need taking care of."

«Well, yes, of course,» said Ax. «But what…»

"Well, say the parents weren't necessarily dead," said Marco. "Say they'd just disappeared, or gone into comas, or something. You'd have a way of adopting the children in that case, too, wouldn't you? A noble and honorable race like yours wouldn't keep them from finding another family just because their real one wasn't officially gone forever, right?"

Ax's eyes widened. «Ah, I see,» he said. «Disappeared, or in comas… or infested by the Yeerks, perhaps?»

"Sure, that works too," said Marco agreeably.

«Yes,» said Ax softly. «Of course, it might well be seemly… and, knowing the plight as you do…» He straightened himself abruptly. «Very well. If Prince Jake approves – as I believe his facial expression indicates – (I glanced behind me, and, sure enough, Jake and Cassie were standing by the door, both wearing rather stunned but genuine smiles) – then I cannot refuse my aid, nor should I wish to. Where is the child whom you wish us to adopt?»

Marco turned to me with a broad grin. "Well, Cosette?" he said. "Care to introduce yourself to _Aristh_ Valjean here?"

Ax's eyes narrowed in a frown, and his gaze darted quickly about the barn. «Cosette?» he repeated. «Who is Cosette? Where is she? I see no-one but…»

He trailed off as I stepped forward, wearing what had to be the biggest smile of my life up to that point. "He means me, Ax," I said.

«What?»

"Me," I repeated, tapping my chest. "The child. The orphan. Me."

* * *

Ax's main eyes got as round as marbles, and he raised his tail-blade instinctively. «Has it come to that, then?» he said, sounding sick with horror. «My brother always did say that tragedies travel in swarms. Do they know how you escaped? And what of your sisters; have they also been…»

I heard Cassie laugh behind me. "No, it's all right, Ax," she said, coming forward and putting a hand on his shoulder. "The Yeerks haven't taken Michelle's family; Marco was just accepting that as an example, not because it's what he meant. It would be wonderful to be able to adopt human-Controllers' free children, but Marco was thinking of something else – of a very young, very vulnerable person whose family thinks she's someone much older and stronger, and can't be told otherwise until a major crisis in her life has already passed. So she needs someone to take their place in her life until then – some people who know her secret already, and can be there for her as she struggles to grow into the unique person she's supposed to be. That's right, isn't it, Marco?"

"Sounds right to me," Marco said.

Cassie heaved a sigh. "Yes, it does, doesn't it?" she said, and turned to me. "I'm sorry, Michelle. That's exactly the sort of thing I should have seen ages ago; heaven knows I'm not much use to this group otherwise. I don't know why I didn't, except that… well…"

I went over and hugged her. "It's okay, Cassie," I said. "If I'd just lost my best friend, I'd have trouble seeing things as well as usual, too."

That got a smile out of her – a small smile, and maybe a slightly sheepish one, but still a smile. "You're a sweet girl, Michelle," she said.

I grinned. "Does that mean you and Daddy Warbucks will take me home?"

At that, Cassie laughed out loud. "Well, I don't know," she said, and craned her neck expectantly in Jake's direction. "What do you think, Oliver?"

"I think you guys need to stop calling people Broadway characters before you send Ax to the funny farm," said Jake dryly. "The way you're going, he'll end up thinking that we're adopting Michelle to protect her from Fagin and the Artful Dodger."

"Then you are adopting me?" I pressed.

Jake shrugged. "Looks like we'd better," he said. "Though I wasn't really expecting to become a father before I'd finished high school…"

"Not a father, I don't think," said Marco thoughtfully. "More like an older brother. They tell me that elder siblings can be sort of secondary parents sometimes, in Asia and places like that – and I don't know about the rest of you, but I always kind of wanted a baby sister."

Cassie blinked, and looked around at us all as though suddenly noticing something. "You know, that's true, isn't it?" she said. "I'd never thought about it before, but do you realize that none of us in this barn have younger siblings? The only one who did was Rachel; without her, the entire Animorphs is made up just of youngests and onlies."

Jake chuckled. "The Runts-of-the-Litter Brigade, now with morphing power," he said. "Well, okay, yeah, we've got to fix that. So, Ax, how about this adoption ritual?"

But Ax was still stuck on a different issue. «What is menacing about one who dodges things artfully?» he asked plaintively.

He jumped a little as we all burst out laughing. "Never mind, Ax," said Cassie. "I'll explain it to you later. But, right now, we need you to tell us what we need to do to become Michelle's family."

«Oh,» said Ax. «Yes. Well, Michelle, if you will just stand in that open space there, with your hands cupped and extended, and your tail-blade turned toward… er… no, that won't do, will it?» He ran his eyes critically over me for a moment, and then shook his head. «No, I can't guess. Prince Jake, what is the usual human gesture to indicate loyal subservience?»

Jake looked at Marco blankly. "Do we have one?"

Marco shrugged. "She could genuflect, I guess," he suggested.

Jake hesitated. "How does that work?"

Marco rolled his eyes. "Michelle," he said, in the voice of one instructing the ignorant peasantry, "could you get down on your right knee, with your other foot still flat on the ground?"

I bent down and brushed away some straw, and lowered my knee carefully onto the tight-packed dirt underneath. "Like this?"

"Yeah, that's great," said Marco. "And your hands?"

"Oh, right." I cupped my hands together and held my arms out, as though I were a toddler getting a drink of water from the spigot. (A shiver went down my spine as I realized that that was probably what the Andalites who invented the ritual were trying to symbolize. Not water, of course, since that wasn't how they drank – but maybe some kind of balm or salve, poured out into a warrior's hands so he could dress his wounds with it. Something, anyway, that one could be given by another and receive new strength thereby.)

I glanced at Ax. "Now what?"

«Now,» he said, «you say these words.»

He told me privately what they were, and I felt my cheeks turning bright red. "Do I have to?"

«If you truly desire what you have requested, yes.»

Well, when he put it that way… "Alas, alas for the wanderer's daughter!" I said. "No place that is seen is home for me, for my destiny is unwoven from theirs to whom I belong. I am a _therant_ in darkness, and who shall be my sunlight; a _kafit_ in the void, and what air shall lift me up? Let it be you, I pray, who though not of my blood have looked upon me kindly; may you be to me what they were who are lost, till perhaps the hour may come when… when…" I paused, took a deep breath, and swallowed two or three times before managing to finish, "…when they are lost no longer."

I heard Cassie stifle a quiet sob, and felt perversely grateful that I wasn't the only weepy Animorph for a change. Jake, meanwhile, frowned and asked Ax whether the bit about "not of my blood" meant that he, as my cousin, had to be left out of the ceremony.

«Not at all, Prince Jake,» said Ax. «The ritual is addressed to a group, not to the individuals who comprise it; so long as any part of the group is not akin to the petitioner, the ritual remains valid. Indeed, as our prince, it is you who must now speak on behalf of the group – as follows…»

He must have switched to private thought-speak at that point, the way he had with me, since the next words I heard came from Jake. "Well… okay, then," he said. "If Michelle did it, I guess I can, too. You're going to have to help me, though; my memory for poetry isn't nearly as good as hers."

Ax nodded and motioned with his hand, and Jake came up to me, cupped his own hands, and placed them on top of mine. (Since I was on one knee, and most of my height is in my legs, that meant he had to bend over a little awkwardly; it was kind of cute, watching him try not to look uncomfortable.) "Weep not, O wanderer's daughter," he said, in a completely expressionless monotone. "Your plea has been heard." Then he paused, presumably to let Ax feed him the next line. "Find among us a communion no less firm than that of kinship." Pause. "Henceforth our several ancestors shall form a single line, twined, as a rope, to the strengthening of each." Pause. "In token of which, I now open your flesh and mine for the mingling of blood, and invite those whom I govern to likewise open theirs." Pause, and glance at Ax. "So, that's it, then?"

«Except for the mingling itself,» yes, said Ax. «I suppose that, in fact, I shall have to make all the openings myself; that diminishes the effect, of course, but, since none of you have tail-blades, it can scarcely be helped. Prince Jake, Michelle, if you will give me your hands?»

Jake and I exchanged uncomfortable glances. "Our hands?" said Jake. "What for?"

«So that I may open your flesh with my tail-blade for the mingling of blood,» said Ax patiently.

"You mean that was _literal_?"

«Of course.»

I flinched, but then reminded myself that there was no point in being adopted by the Animorphs if I wasn't prepared for a little pain. (And, anyway, if I was lucky, maybe he'd get the splinter out that I'd picked up when I hit the log.)

So Jake and I held out our hands, and Ax flicked his tail-blade and made two tiny cuts just above our wrists. (Not where the splinter had gone in, of course, because I'm about as lucky as a stalk of celery.) Then, as he did the same to himself, and then to Marco and Cassie, I cupped my hands again, and Jake pressed his down so that our two wounds touched. "By this joining of blood with blood," he recited, "let all see that our two bloods are now made one." Pause. "In the name of this community, I welcome you, Michelle…" Pause. "…wanderer's daughter, now daughter as well of him who remains." Slight pause, and a quizzical glance at Ax. "Um… nasty affair?"

« _Nas-tyaferr_ ,» said Ax. «It means, roughly, "You are home," but the form of the verb contains a kinship indicator that cannot be reproduced in your language. It is the end and consummation of the ritual.»

"You don't say," said Jake. "Okay, then, Michelle. _Nas-tyaferr._ "

I beamed. "Glad to hear it, Prince Jake."

Cassie and Marco both burst out giggling at the look on Jake's face. But Ax, true to form, didn't even blink; he just whispered to me not to get up yet, and then waited for the other two to calm down again. When they had, he gestured to them (and probably spoke, too, though I didn't hear it), and the three of them came over and gathered in front of me, next to Jake.

Ax leaned over and pressed his hands against mine. « _Nas-tyaferr,_ »he said, making it sound very different from when Jake had said it: more liquid and musical, and more solemn, too, I thought. How much of that was the language being native to him, how much was his Andalite indifference to seeming cool, and how much was sympathy for a fellow outcast, I don't suppose I'll ever know; maybe even he doesn't.

Then Cassie came forward, and she pressed and _nas-tyaferr_ -ed, too – except she, when she'd finished, leaned over and gave me a little hug around the neck, because she's awesome that way. Then it was Marco's turn; he was Mr. Casual about it, of course, and yet somehow seemed to do it more gracefully than any of them – and, as he pressed my hand and glanced into my eyes, I had the impression that he was feeling it more deeply than even Ax had done, cool as he was playing it. " _Nas-tyaferr_ , Michelle," he said.

 _Nas-tyaferr_. I shut my eyes, and felt a spasm of happiness go through me. Yes, I _was_ home; for the first time in my life, I had a place where I knew I belonged. Jake and Marco and Cassie and Ax weren't just some friends of Rachel's anymore; they were my kindred, my pledged caretakers – the elder siblings that Rachel herself (though she'd never in a million years have admitted it) had always secretly wanted. Things wouldn't magically get easier, of course – even apart from the whole Yeerk invasion and having to hide from my birth family, what had happened at the Sharing festival couldn't just be erased – but it might be a little bit…

PWAAAAANNNNGGGG!

I started with fright (not a good thing to do when you're on one knee; if it hadn't been for Rachel's years of gymnastics training, I probably would have fallen over) and wrenched my eyes back open. The others were staring in shock at a point just behind my right shoulder; with a queasy feeling, I turned my head that way, fumbling as I did so for a mental picture of the Gardens' grizzly bear – and then I saw what they were looking at, and every thought of morphing, or of anything else, went straight out of my head.

What they were looking at took a few more seconds to finish his morph; then he lifted the top half of the broken cage off his head, tossed it to one side, and slid down from the table. Without a word, he came over to where the others were standing; they automatically stepped aside for him, and he stood in front of me and stared into my eyes, his human face as expressionless as that of the bird of prey he had been a few moments before.

He reached out a hand toward me; I instinctively flinched backward and tried to withdraw my hands, but somehow my arms wouldn't obey me, and the next instant he had taken hold of me by the right wrist. He stared down for a long moment at the small puncture in my hand; then he took a deep breath, and placed the top of his own left hand (which, like a number of other places on his body, had been gashed by the snapped wires of his cage) overtop of it.

" _Nas-tyaferr,_ " he said softly.

I worked my lips soundlessly for a moment before finding my voice again. "Tobias…" I whispered. "Tobias, I… I…"

Tobias nodded. "Yeah, I know," he said, and glanced back at the others. "Guys, could we have a couple seconds?"

* * *

Well, of course when someone who's just come back basically from the dead asks for some time alone with the new sister you've found him, you don't make a fuss about giving it to him. I don't think any of the others understood what was going on yet any better than I did (except Ax, whose eyes were gleaming with triumphant delight as he started morphing back to harrier), but, regardless, in another minute the only two people in the barn were Tobias and me – the Animorph whom fate had used most cruelly, and the life-stealing clone of the girl he'd loved.

I didn't dare to speak, at first. I had no idea what to say, and anyway I was afraid of what might happen; if I started crying then, I thought I might never stop. But then, looking up into Tobias's wistful gray eyes, I realized that he probably felt almost the same way – so, somehow, I found the strength to ask, in the tiniest voice you can imagine, "Are you okay, Tobias?"

He made a faint little movement with his shoulders. "I'm here," he said simply. "That's better than I expected to be doing, a little while ago."

I bit my lip. "Oh, Tobias, I'm so sorry," I said. "I promise, I didn't mean to…"

"No," he said sharply. "No, don't say that. There's nothing you need to apologize for, Michelle." He paused, and let out what I think he meant to be a laugh. "Michelle," he repeated. "You know, I don't think I've ever actually called you that before."

I thought back for a moment, and realized that I didn't remember him ever saying my name, either. In fact, I couldn't remember us even exchanging more than a dozen words at once before. But that, of course, just made things worse. "I don't care whether I need to," I said sharply. "I'm going to. That foul Taylor creature was nearly able to turn you into a brute animal, all because I kept insisting on trying to be someone I wasn't. I don't even know how you got out of it, except that I'm guessing Ax had something to do with it…"

Tobias chuckled. "Yes, he certainly did," he said. "Do you know what he was saying to me, all the while you four were out there?"

I shook my head. "I wasn't out there," I said. "I mean, I was out there in the sense that I wasn't in here, but I wasn't… you know, out where the others were. I was farther away, out in the woods."

"So was I," said Tobias, and sighed. "It's amazing how far into the woods you can go, if you let yourself. Especially if you're a hawk; that's where they live, you know."

His tone made me feel cold inside. I had memories of Rachel's where our grandfather had talked this way – late at night, when he'd been drinking and remembering his first wife – and neither of us had ever liked them much.

"And there's no sadness in the woods," Tobias continued. "Or else it's all sadness – but, either way, you don't notice it. They don't know about those things there – about souls, or love, or memories. The sun rises, and you hunt; the sun sets, and you sleep: that's all."

"But what about Ax?" I said – a little more pleadingly than I'd meant to, maybe.

"Ax?" For a moment, Tobias looked blank. "Oh. Right. Well, I was in there, going deeper and deeper in all the time, and then suddenly I heard this voice in my head. It took me a couple seconds to realize it was Ax, and a few seconds more to process what he was saying – which was fine, actually, because he spent the first little while talking about how I might be too far gone to take it in, but he was going to say it anyway, because then again I might not. And then he reminded me how, a long time ago, he had asked me whether I was his friend, and I had said of course I was, because he and I were the two weirdest creatures on Earth."

I giggled. "You really said that?"

"Well, that wasn't _all_ I said," said Tobias, "but yeah. It was when… well, never mind that. The point is, I'd said it, and now Ax was holding me to it. 'But that is no longer true, Tobias,' he said. 'I hope that I am still your friend, but I am no longer one of the two strangest creatures on Earth. The strangest creature on Earth is now a young female of your species, who began life as a starfish when her predecessor's morph was bifurcated by a child's shovel blade; who spent her first fortnight as a fractured soul inside an intact and vigorous body; and who was made whole, not gradually and naturally as such creatures ought, but abruptly and violently through morph substitution. She and you are now what you and I once were – and you, Tobias, have not been a proper friend to her. Betrayed by your longing for her prototype, you have spurned her overtures, denied her your counsel, and persistently wished her non-existent – and I assure you that she knows it. Now, perhaps you are already merely a hawk, and such considerations are no longer meaningful to you; if it is so, then so be it. But if there is anything remaining to you of my brother's son, my _shorm_ , and my fellow warrior, I trust that you will not willingly leave this matter unrectified.'"

He lowered his eyes toward the ground. "And right about then was when you guys came in," he said, "and started talking about how we needed to adopt you as our sister, because your real family might as well not be there for all the good it did you – and then you started reciting that thing about not having a home, or air to lift you up. The kind of stuff I know all about – and maybe could have helped you with, if I'd let you close enough to know that you needed it…" He pursed his lips, and took a heavy breath through his nose. "So I guess what I'm saying, Michelle, is that I'm the one who's sorry."

* * *

For a moment, I was completely speechless; then the irony of the whole thing dawned on me, and I started laughing helplessly. "'Anything remaining of my brother's son'," I said. "So they got you in the duty trap, too, huh?"

Tobias frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh…" I waved my hand. "It's stupid, I guess, but I felt so bad about what had happened to you that I was getting ready just now to, you know, trap myself in cat morph and completely abandon my Animorph life. But…"

"Cat morph?" said Tobias. "You mean as Fluffer?"

"Right. But then Marco followed me, and stopped me before I could…"

"I thought Fluffer was a tom," said Tobias.

I stopped short, and looked up at him with a sudden queasy feeling. "What?"

"That's right, isn't it?" said Tobias. "I could swear that Rachel said 'him', that night at Chapman's. If you were going to trap yourself in morph, why pick a male?"

My mind reeled. Of all the things not to have even thought about… and if I hadn't been interrupted, I might never have until… "Tobias, could you excuse me a second?" I said faintly. "I think I need to go kiss Marco. Like, right now."

Tobias laughed out loud at that – unmistakably laughed, this time. "Oh, man," he said. "You really aren't Rachel, are you?"

I knew it was a joke, but it cut me to the quick, even so. "I'd be her if I could, Tobias," I said softly. "I know how much you must miss her; I miss her sometimes myself, and I never even met her. But she's gone, and I'm here – and that just has to be okay, now."

He looked at me for a long moment before answering. "Yeah," he said. "And you know something? I think it will, in the end."

* * *

Then he helped me to my feet, and the two of us headed out of the barn and into the sunlight outside. It looked like the others were in the middle of some kind of heated argument, with Jake and Cassie earnestly on one side and Marco laconically on the other; when they saw us, though, they all broke off and jumped to their feet, and gave us nervous looks that, after a second or two, all turned to satisfied smiles.

"So," I said, "did we miss anything?"

"Just Ax taking off," said Marco. "He said something about being confident that all was now well, and then just flew away. Didn't even stay to tell us whether it's incestuous for Cassie and Jake to be an item now."

"Marco, I'm telling you, that's not how it works," said Jake, his face red. "Just because we're both family to the same person now doesn't make us family to… I mean, if you marry somebody, then your two families get twined together the same way Michelle's and ours are now, but that doesn't mean your sister can't marry her brother, does it? For Pete's sake, even the Bible says…"

"Sure, Jake, sure," said Marco, patting Jake on the shoulder with exquisite condescension. Then he turned back to Tobias and me. "So, when are we having the party?"

Tobias and I glanced at each other. "Um… party?" I said.

"Sure," said Marco. "The way I was raised, whenever something good happens, you have a party. And having a new sister is definitely good in my book."

"Oh." I blushed. "Well, okay, I guess. I mean, like I said, I did kind of want to get back home to help Jordan, but I guess we could do something later… or now, if you wanted. I mean, I don't…"

"Tomorrow," said Tobias. "The Hork-Bajir valley, seven o'clock. I'll go see Erek about the catering; he must have once cooked for the Emperor of China or something, right?" He glanced at me. "That good for you?"

It took me a second to reply. "Um… yeah," I said, feeling a huge, goofy smile spread over my face. "Yeah, that's… that's great."

Tobias smiled back – the first time I'd ever seen him smile directly at me. Then he turned, and slipped behind the barn door; a few minutes later, a red-tailed hawk hopped out into the grass, spread his wings, and lifted himself into the air. He circled once or twice over my head, and I heard him whisper, « _Nas-tyaferr_ , little sister»; then, with a few brisk flaps, he was up and away, soaring into the sun like the image of hope and bravery he was.

Cassie must have seen my tears gleaming in the sunlight; anyway, she came over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. "Michelle?" she said. "Michelle, are you all right?"

I wiped my eyes, and turned to meet my new sister's gaze. "Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "It's just… it's just so good to be home."

* * *

 **IL FINE**

* * *

 **Disclaimer:** In honor of what, come Saturday, will be the first sensible and hopeful thing that the Swedish Academy has done in a depressingly long time, I would like to disclaim this story with a song:

 ** _You say you're looking for someone_**  
 ** _Who holds the rights to Yeerks and Chee_**  
 ** _And may yet renounce the folly_**  
 ** _That such claims must ever be_**  
 ** _And lift the stranglehold we all deplore_**

 ** _But it ain't me, babe_**  
 ** _No, no, no, it ain't me, babe_**  
 ** _It ain't me you're looking for, babe_**

Skål, Mr. Dylan. Can't wait to see the transcript of your Nobel lecture.


End file.
